Moby Dick, compared to Ahab's Wife

At the beginning of this month I read Moby Dick for the first time, and was underwhelmed. The book had such a promising beginning, and Ishmael's voice was so earnest and engaging, but the action of the book went almost no where, I found. Nothing was happening, and too much of Ishmael's precious energy was wasted on uninteresting descriptions and odes. 

Now, a third of the way through Ahab's Wife, by Sena Jeter-Naslund, I am starting to understand the author's motivation. She is taking the premise and the rich characters of MD and turning them into a page turner! I am enthralled in Una's world, as much because of the way she tells the story as its events. Whereas by the 50% mark I was skimming MD, skipping passages of descriptions and jumping to the dialogue, someone would have to pay me to skip pages in this book, where I can hardly tear my eyes away from the page to attend to the (precious few, blessedly) other things I need to be doing this week. 
How much of the increased interest lies in the fact that Una is a woman, and tells the story from a female perspective, contrasting with Ishmael's young man? Some, I suppose. But I think this book would be just as good if it were Ahab's Brother.